Dam, The Final Stop

Our last and final stop was Amsterdam (though I still need to write about the World Expo). After a 10 hour train ride, with transfers, we had to catch a city train up to Wormerveer, the suburb where we were couchsurfing. Lennert is a young, super chill IT guru who owns the three bedroom house he grew up in. He loves the company and camaraderie of the Couchsurfing community and allowed us to stay for over a week in our own bedroom.

It was great to meet up with the GA Tech architecture study abroad crew again. We got to spend the 4th of July with them drinking and eating picnic food (and of course apple pie) in the park on a gorgeous sun filled day. The number of people out and about just enjoying the fresh air was incredible, and the amount of bicycling commuters all over the canal city was staggering. The tech kids were lucky enough to have rented bikes all week for their tours and they all agreed the city is an amazing place to ride. Pedestrians give right of way and every street has a full bike lane (sometimes with medians)

Of course Joe and I visited the famous windmill village, where we tasted twenty kinds of cheese (and I found out that truffle is disgusting) and watched wooden clogs being formed. I couldn't believe that it took just five minutes from stump to shoe! During our last night in downtown, Joe, me, Ai-Lien, and Zach found a bar with old school arcade games and a huge ball pit! Joe and Zach had childhood flashbacks when they started playing (and dominating) Time Crisis. After a couple games of Jenga, which I miserably lost as usual, the bar announced last call and Ai-Lien and I decided to take a quick jump in the ball pit, because yolo ;)

The bartender had to come over and basically kick us out as they were trying to close, but it was worth it. Is it sad that my favorite part of Amsterdam was playing video games with friends? Once we left, Joe and I realized we had five minutes to catch the last train to Wormerveer so we sprinted to the station. He didn't have enough money on his card for a ticket so we snuck on the train, figuring there was no way they would be verifying tickets that late. Wrong. We saw the officer walking down the aisle and jumped off at the next stop...3 miles from Lennert's house. Joe didn't have a jacket and wanted to wait for the night bus, which dropped us at the next station whcih left us a 25 minute walk home. Three hours after leaving central station, we were finally in our bed.

We flew from Amsterdam to DC to visit Joe's family and had an incredible homecoming. As much as I love traveling, there's nothing like sleeping in your own bed in a familiar city surrounded by family.